Merging from toll lanes into travel lanes is safer when cars have slowed for the toll plaza

The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway will soon buy a new toll-collection system that could eventually eliminate the need to staff all the toll booths. But, the head of the bridge says, it's unlikely there will ever be a collection system on the bridge that doesn't require motorists to drastically slow down through the toll plaza -- which no doubt will leave more than a few commuters disappointed.

View full sizeChuck Cook, The Times-Picayune archiveThe Lake Pontchartrain Causeway toll plaza in Mandeville was photographed in October 2006.

The Causeway Commission voted last week to negotiate a contract with TRMI Systems Integration for a new collection system, including new toll-tag readers, new booths, extensive computer equipment and new signage.

TRMI's proposal of $2.58 million was actually the highest of the three the Causeway received. But Dufrechou said the company's proposal was recommended by a panel of engineers and Causeway staff, and noted that TRMI and its parent company, The Revenue Markets Inc., installed the same toll-collection system on San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge and Maryland's Chesapeake Bay Bridge.

Dufrechou acknowledged to the commission that choosing the highest-priced proposal "might seem contrary'' to efforts to cut costs, but that he thinks the company is the best choice.

"We want a system that will get commuters on that bridge quickly and be very reliable,'' he said. He later added: "The bottom line: We're going after a robust, maintainable system.''

But one thing the new collection system won't do is read toll tags as drivers whiz by, as systems on some toll roads in other parts of the country are capable of. And that's not likely to change anytime soon.

"That's really a safety issue," Dufrechou said.

The bridge's north shore "footprint'' largely prohibits such a venture, Dufrechou said. That footprint funnels four -- and eventually, five -- toll lanes into the two travel lanes on the southbound span. As it is now, Dufrechou and other bridge officials have said, the act of slowing down through the toll plaza essentially staggers the amount of traffic trying to merge onto the bridge's two lanes.

Dufrechou said he understands motorists' frustration of having to slow down through the toll plaza even if they have toll tags, but he doesn't see how the bridge could ever go to full "open road tolling.''

"It would be nice,'' he said. "But I don't see it happening.''

Dufrechou's recommendation to go with TRMI drew the commission's support.

"I don't think the motoring public has any idea how tenuous the system we have is,'' Commissioner Lawrence Katz said.

Replacing the collection system was a project on the Causeway's drawing board for 2013, but in the wake of the March lightning strike the project moved to the top of the priority list. The bridge lost $30,000 in revenue as tolls were dropped periodically to ease traffic congestion while bridge personnel manually recorded tag information from toll-tag holders. About 65 percent of the vehicles passing through the toll plaza each morning have toll tags.

If all goes according to schedule, the work would take six months or so and could be finished in the first quarter of 2013, Dufrechou said. The system would be installed in coordination with a nonrelated $1.1 million project that will open a fifth lane and toll booth at the north shore toll plaza.

Causeway tolls, generally $3 for cars or $2 for toll-tag holders, are only collected on the north shore, for drivers heading south.